Why not? Greedy investors such as Louis Navellier wants the American people to believe that Union’s are at fault for this recession. Navellier claims that Union’s ” are forcing their hand to make corporations pay out big salaries to scheduled workers.” Should the big salaries only be applied to SEO’s.? The truth and consequence here is not holding organized labor at fault, but holding investors at fault. Shareholders keep re-electing top tier management, because they were able to get a higher yield on a shorter term. Now that we are in a recession, the buck has to be passed on.
Louis Navellier recently stated “Companies need to do anything they can to fend off this blatant move to transfer wealth from company owners (that would be us, shareholders) to employees.” Hey Louis, if we don’t have the “backbone” spending money, then there will be no shareholders. Instead of showing the union’s and the workers as greedy, and manipulative, try cleaning house from the top down. Furthermore, if a CEO was forced to make leaner decisions during positive markets, than were wouldn’t be such a deficit during tumultuous times. Now that’s showing responsibilities. Unions, when used at correctly, not only generate community wealth, but also can be used for symbols like “Made in America” which by the way still means something to the fine people of this country.
A good example of how Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) (H.R. 1409, S. 560) could benefit American workers, medical facilities. We have got word that some medical facilities that are operating in the black right now are imposing wage freezes for their clinical staff. CRC health Corp. recently told its employees that they would not be getting their general 2 percent wage increase this year, being that this company is held by a private equity firm, we cannot tell you if the SEO’s are getting a wage increase. But dissect the 2 percent wage increase for a moment, go from almost nothing to nothing really puts a damper on employee morale. At least with union representation, this would not have happened.
So Louis, there is really more to the big picture. Having unions in place helps to balance a work place. When employees are paid well, they work hard. When employers take away simple yet small wage increases, then guess what happens to production?
3 Comments, Comment or Ping
Tom Humes
Nice Site layout for your blog. I am looking forward to reading more from you.
Tom Humes
Apr 2nd, 2009
wm. czander
This is from my book The Death of the American Corporation
Kill the Unions and get Rich
In the early 1950s, more than one-third of American workers belonged to unions. Bargaining between these workers and their employers helped raised wages, provide health care and pensions for all workers. It kept the employer employee compact firm. It also kept executive rewards reasonable and during this period the gap between the CEO and their lowest level employee was approximately a multiple of 20.
In 2008, only 7.4 percent of employees in the corporate world belong to unions (37 percent in the public sector belong to unions). This absence of a union check on executive pay leaves Wall Street and their CEOs free of sanctions. CEO’s are now free to lower wages, layoff workers at will, reduce health care benefits, eliminate pensions and reward themselves and their stockholders handsomely.
Research has demonstrated that a union presence can make have a significant impact on executive pay. One survey, published in the Journal of Labor Research, found that CEOs at nonunion companies take home nearly 20 percent more than executives in unionized firms. Workers in union companies, meanwhile, make $200 more a week than their nonunion counterparts.
The gap between CEO and employee pay is significantly wide in the service industries, where only a small percentage of employees belong to unions. For example, in food services, employees average about $18,877 a year. The CEOs of the top 10 firms in this industry, corporations like McDonald’s, YUM Brands, KFC and Pizza Hut, took home 354 times that much in 2007 (Pizzigati and Anderson, 2008).
Apr 3rd, 2009
admin
another great book
Apr 3rd, 2009
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